


Some Notes on the Segregation of the Queen

by Prochytes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Elementary (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 13:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7894216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Joan has a baffling death on a freeway to solve; Sherlock has an enigmatic lodger; and New York City has a case of the shakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Notes on the Segregation of the Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D_ to 3x22 “Ascension” and _Jessica Jones_ to 1x13 “AKA Smile”; small spoilers for _Elementary_ to 4x04 “All My Exes Live in Essex”. Originally posted on LJ in 2016.

The singular affair of the One-Man Gridlock – the reason why Andrew Helm applied his brakes with an entirely open road ahead of him while cruising along Interstate 90 outside Albany on an unseasonably warm spring day in 2015, and so died when the truck behind ploughed into the back of his BMW – was amongst the strangest of Joan Watson’s long and illustrious career as a private detective. For Joan, afterwards, the story always seemed entwined with that of Mary – who had never met Andrew Helm, nor even, during the brief space that she lived under the roof of Sherlock's brownstone, learned that Andrew Helm had ever existed. But Mary was still entirely unknown to Joan when the latter arrived in Sherlock’s kitchen one evening, weary from a day of fieldwork, to find the master of the house glaring at a keyboard.

 

“Auguste Dupin,” he said, before Joan had had time to shrug off her coat. 

 

“The guy from ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’?” Joan frowned. “I thought that you hated Poe.”

 

“I do, with a visceral passion. His unreal fables bear about the same relation to the life of the practising detective that WWE does to WW2. Dupin is a meretricious oaf.” Sherlock drummed his fingers on the table. “And I need to work out what kind of coffee he would drink.”

 

Joan looked at him quizzically. “Seriously?”

 

“Frappé, do you think? I find it hard to imagine Monsieur Dupin as a Cappuccinista.”

 

“Frappé, definitely. Why…?”

 

“How was Albany?”

 

Joan contemplated pursuing the issue; for the moment, she chose to let it slide. She shrugged. “Uninformative. But Andrew Helm definitely wasn’t a suicide.”

 

“I’d guessed as much.” Sherlock saved the document, and minimized it. “The internal combustion engine can be a potent ally to the prospective self-slaughterer. People gas themselves in sealed garages. Less often, they drive off cliffs and bridges or - _much_ less often – into walls. But no suicide, to the best of my extensive knowledge, has ever parked while driving along an Interstate and hoped for the worst.”

 

“Exactly.” Joan rearranged herself in her seat. “Local police were trying to sell me on the idea that he was distracted by his ’phone. There was a hands-free set in his BMW, and he had just connected a call to his wife. The records of her smartphone confirm it.”

 

“They posit, then, that he lost focus?”

 

“Yes. But that doesn't add up, either. Distracted drivers _forget_ to slam on the brakes. They don't, as a rule, brake unexpectedly. On top of that, Andrew Helm didn't actually manage to speak to his wife.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Virginia - Mrs. Helm - was out jogging in NYC when he tried to call her. She wears headphones when she's running, so she didn't hear the ring. Virginia thinks that the call connected in her pocket, but she only found out what had happened when she finished her run.”

 

“I see.” Sherlock sucked his teeth. “What do we know about the trucker?”

 

“Dwight Jenkins, from Detroit. Fifty-two years of age; a driver for thirty years without a blemish on his record. He was injured himself in the crash; seems genuinely devastated at what happened. No prior link to the Helms that I've been able to find.”

 

“Does Virginia Helm suspect him of some ulterior motive? Is that why she retained your services?”

 

“No. She just thinks that there’s something… off about all this. I’m inclined to agree, though I’m not convinced we’ll ever know what made Andrew hit the brakes. I’ve told Virginia that any progress is unlikely, but she paid me a flat fee anyway.”

 

Sherlock nodded. “Good hunting, then.” He brought the document back up on his computer. “I fear that I must return to erecting some dizzying edifice of ratiocination on the fundament of a skinny latte.”

 

***

 

Joan first made Mary’s acquaintance some days later.

 

The Helm case continued to chafe inside her head, but she had others. Until her requests for archived forensic evidence came through, she was pursuing these. Dropping by Sherlock’s house in the evening for a consultation, she opened the door to the living-room, stared for a moment thoughtfully, and cleared her throat.

 

“SHERLOCK?”

 

“YES, WATSON?” His voice rose muffled from the far reaches of the brownstone. 

 

“THERE’S A WOMAN VIVISECTING SOME ELECTRONICS ON THE CARPET. SHOULD I BE WORRIED?”

 

“THAT’S FINE. IT’S MARY. SHE’S HELPING WITH SOME UPGRADES TO THE HOME NETWORK.”

 

“GREAT.” Joan smiled at the young woman who was looking up at her warily from her position cross-legged on the living-room floor. “Sorry about that.” She stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Joan Watson.”

 

“Mary.” The young woman’s grip was firm, once she had scrambled to her feet for the handshake. 

 

“Just Mary?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“WITH YOU IN FIVE MINUTES, WATSON. THIS NEW STRAITJACKET SHOULDN’T DETAIN ME FOR VERY MUCH LONGER.”

 

“OK.” Joan turned back to Mary. “Do you mind if I sit while you work?”

 

“Be my guest.”

 

Joan watched for what was, indeed, a little under five minutes as Mary’s fingers danced across circuits and keyboards, with only occasional pauses to rub absently at the bruises on her elbows and lower arms. Sherlock’s head popped around the door.

 

“Sorry for the delay, Watson. Shall we adjourn to the kitchen?”

 

“Let’s. Nice to meet you, Mary.”

 

“Likewise.” Mary smiled up at her, and bent again over her work. 

 

Joan and Sherlock immersed themselves in cases for a couple of hours, during which time Mary finished her endeavours and let herself out. At last, Sherlock leaned back in his chair.

 

“It’s likely that Mary will be moving into the basement flat.”

 

Joan considered this statement. It hadn’t been framed as a request - Joan had lost count, long ago, of how many languages Sherlock spoke; he wasn’t at ease with the polite imperative in any of them - but Joan knew that it had been intended as such. Joan was not living in the brownstone at the moment, but Sherlock still wanted her implicit permission to let anyone else stay there. She smiled. 

 

“I’m sure Mary will be a great tenant.”

 

Sherlock bowed his head in acknowledgment. “What do you make of her? You know our methods…”

 

“So I’ll apply them.” Joan rested her elbows on the table, and marshalled her thoughts. Some enigmatic moments from the last week clicked into place. “I’m guessing that she used to be a hacker, before a government agency scooped her up and trained her. She doesn’t work for the government any more, though.”

 

“Excellent. Your reasoning?” 

 

“You were writing a Dupin coffeeshop AU. The only thing that could force you to do that would be a forfeit from Everyone. Given their knowledge of the digital underground, the time-frame, and what I saw of Mary’s skill-set just now, it seems a reasonable leap that you were asking them about her, and that she used to be a hacker. ”

 

Sherlock nodded. “Go on.”

 

“ _Used_ to be a hacker. Everyone wouldn’t give up anything on one of their own, even if you offered to cosplay Hercule Poirot at Comic Con. She’s dead to them now. For a hacker, the most likely scenario to bring that about would be switching sides. I’m guessing that it wasn’t just her tech skills that her new employers developed, either.”

 

“You saw the bruises?”

 

“I did. She’s been in at least two physical confrontations during the last week, neither of which she lost. Not sparring - the wounds are in the wrong places, and the opposition wasn't wearing gloves. I doubt that she was just a back-room girl. But she doesn’t work for the government any more, or she’d hardly be running tech support for you. Besides…”

 

“What?”

 

 _We attract runaways and the forsaken, Sherlock. Their eyes sting at the smoke from their burning bridges._ "Nothing. Anyway, you trust her, and that’s good enough for me.”

 

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “How do you know I trust her?”

 

“Someone had to have put you in that straitjacket.”

 

***

 

Mary’s domestic habits turned out to be a lot like Sherlock’s, though with less in the way of lock-picking, car-jacking, or escapology. She kept irregular hours, punctuated by an exercise regimen of unremitting severity. As a result, Joan saw little of her for a couple of weeks after she had moved in. 

 

One Sunday, however, Joan was sitting in the kitchen, contemplating files for the Helm case on her laptop, when Mary deposited herself near at hand, and began dissecting some inscrutable widget (Joan, while now more than competent in such matters for everyday purposes, knew that she would never be as technically-minded as Sherlock). Mary seemed intent on her task, and made no overt effort to attract Joan’s attention. In light of the brownstone’s size, though, Joan suspected that this benign and proximate industry was intended as some sort of ice-breaker. 

 

“How are things?” she asked, to get the ball rolling. 

 

Mary grimaced. “Could be better. I have several... projects on the go. Some of them can get a little hairy.”

 

“I’m sure.” Mary’s bruises, Joan had noticed, never really went away, although they sometimes shifted position. Several ice-packs had become long-term residents of the fridge. “Has Sherlock been helping with any of them?”

 

“I prefer to work alone, these days. And we’re not… um…. in case you were wondering…” Daisy flushed. 

 

Joan grinned. “Relax; I didn’t think you were. Although, to be honest, you’re kinda his type. Smart, athletic, rocking just a bit of the bad girl thing. If you had a twin, it would be Yahtzee. You don’t have a twin?”

 

Mary relaxed and giggled. “No.”

 

“Or a clone?”

 

“That can’t quite be ruled out, in light of… um… what I used to do. But not as far as I’m aware.”

 

“Good to know.” Joan hesitated, before ploughing on: “Speaking of former occupations… did Sherlock tell you what I was, before he helped me become a detective?”

 

“Uh-huh. You were a surgeon.”

 

“After that, I mean.”

 

“Ah.” Mary’s smile was brief and a little sad. “You want to ask.”

 

“Only if you want to tell.”

 

“How long since my last fix.” Mary bit her lip. “I thought I’d got so good at hiding it.”

 

“You are. Your hands barely shake. I can see you centring yourself, every now and again, but it isn’t obvious.”

 

“I haven’t used in a few months. We both know that I could give you the day and hour when I stopped, but I’d rather not.”

 

“That’s fine. What was it, if you don’t mind my asking? Your symptoms are a little unusual.”

 

Mary swallowed. “It was called The Sway. You won’t find it on the street. No one’s making any more.” She put one hand over the other on the table in front of her. “The Sway gutted me. Once upon a time, I lived out of a van. I had my principles; they were almost as good as a hot meal and a bed for the night. After that I was an agent of…. something, and after _that_ I was an agent of nothing. Now I’m just nothing.”

 

“You’re far from nothing, Mary.”

 

“Mary. My New York name. Not my favourite. But it's the only one I have left that's clean.” Mary shook herself. “Sorry. That all got kinda heavy. I’ll leave you to your work.”

 

“You don’t have to go.”

 

“No - I could use some alone time. Sherlock says that the roof is nice in this kind of weather?”

 

“It is. We’ll talk again?”

 

“I’d like that.” Mary picked up the gizmo, and withdrew. 

 

Joan worked through her files for a little longer, before seeking out Sherlock in his television room. He sat, now, in the pose that he had occupied when they first met, serene before his screens. News-streams purled through the chamber: the referendum in the United Kingdom; the slow work of reconstruction in Sokovia; reactions from the commodities markets to the unexpected succession in Wakanda. The data anchorite. 

 

She did not bother to advertise her presence, guessing that he knew that she was there. Sure enough, he lifted his head. 

 

“How goes it, Watson?”

 

“Slowly. I received the forensic records on the Helm case.”

 

“No joy?”

 

“None whatsoever.” She moved forward into the room. “There wasn’t any kind of fault in the BMW. Helm definitely hit those brakes. Traffic cameras didn’t pick up anything on the road ahead. It’s looking like he had some kind of momentary aberration.”

 

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply. Before he could do so, the brownstone began to shake. 

 

***

 

Joan would have been the first to admit that she was a little vague on the finer points of earthquake drill. This was, after all, New York City and not L. A.. She was, nonetheless, reasonably sure that you were officially discouraged from moving up the building. On the other hand, Mary was alone on the roof, and Sherlock was already barrelling up the stairs. It was usually more interesting, if more hazardous, to nurse the hope that he knew what he was doing. 

 

He halted for a moment after flinging open the door at the top of the final flight. Joan had little doubt as to why. Mary, wide-eyed, was on her knees. The device that Joan had seen in the kitchen lay broken and forgotten before her. Its innards jumped and rearranged themselves, silicon haruspicy, as the surface beneath them shivered. 

 

Mary was staring at the bees, which, agitated, had boiled forth from their hives. Joan caught her breath and considered options.

 

“Sherlock, see to the bees. I’ll look after Mary.”

 

He raised a hand in assent, and darted to the far end of the roof. Mary finally wrenched her gaze from the swarm and stared at Joan. 

 

“S….stay away. I… I can’t… I can’t hold this back...”

 

“Mary, everything’s going to be OK.” Joan stepped forward. Mary trembled, and folded in upon herself. Simultaneously, the shaking of the roof redoubled. Joan blinked, and took another breath. 

 

“You’re having a panic attack,” she said. _Which you seem to be able to share with inanimate objects._ Joan tied that thought off for later contemplation; life with Sherlock taught you when you had to tourniquet the crazy. After all, Joan had endured Indonesian mega-rodentia, and #merridew of the abominable tweets, and the thing with the Congressman, the cormorant, and the GPS. She had volunteered at the local hospitals, when it was all hands to the pumps in the wake of The Incident. This wasn’t even in the top ten weirdest things she’d seen. 

 

The house gave another peristaltic ripple, as Mary struggled to master herself. Joan nearly lost her footing. Maybe this was in the top ten. Possibly even in the top three. 

 

“This will pass. Sherlock and I are here. This will pass, and you will be fine.”

 

Mary gulped and nodded. The brownstone lurched giddyingly one more time, then came to rest. At the other end of the roof, Sherlock moved back and forth amidst his murmurous host, splashes of black and spendthrift gold against the umber city about them, and below.

 

***

 

“I, er, made some deductions about you when we first met.” 

 

“Goes with the territory.” 

 

“I think that I may have missed a trick or two.”

 

Mary’s eyes had been guarded when Joan went to visit her - two days later - in the basement flat. Joan was relieved to see her face relaxing into a smile. “If it makes you feel better,” she said, “Sherlock didn’t know, either. I’m not as… altered as some of the other people like me. It’s hard to spot, unless you get a look at my DNA.”

 

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Sherlock’s not an easy man to fool, especially if you’re his housemate.” He had been very fast, even by his standards, in loping up the stairs when the “earthquake” hit. “Sherlock keeps the secrets of the people that we trust. Even from each other.” She glanced at the book wrapped around Mary’s finger. “What are you reading?”

 

“A poem Sherlock gave me. Something Roman. Heavy on the dung.”

 

“Ah. The _Georgics_. One of his favourites.”

 

“Seriously? I just got to the gripping narrative of cow-fever.”

 

“He likes the last book.” Joan watched Mary’s expression. “It’s all about keeping bees.”

 

“Oh. Pointed, much?”

 

“There’s this guy in it called Arist-something. Aristaeus; that’s the name. He’s a beekeeper and his colonies have collapsed. He asks his mother why the bees have died - his mother knows things, she’s kinda immortal…”

 

“Huh. That happens more often than you’d think.”

 

“... and it turns out that Aristaeus drove an innocent to death without even knowing it.” This led, Joan knew, into another story, one which Sherlock had once devoured with a passion: a story about a gifted man who lost the woman he loved, won her back from the pallid shades, and lost her again. But Sherlock wasn’t the only one who kept a watchful guard on others’ secrets. 

 

“Classy.” Mary flipped forward in the book and read aloud: “ _All have the same mind, while the king survives._ ” She shivered. “All the parts, working as one. Some people like me think that we’re given our powers for a reason. That we’re cogs in some cosmic plan. Pieces in a puzzle.”

 

“Do you think that’s true?”

 

“I hope that it isn’t. If this is a plan, it’s brutal, and it’s stupid, and it kills good men. The world is what the world is.” Mary cocked her head on one side. “You’re being texted.”

 

“How do you know? My ’phone’s in the other room.”

 

“And set to ‘vibrate’. Anything that does a shimmy answers to me.”

 

“Handy.”

 

“Hey - it isn’t all about damaging real estate.”

 

Joan rose and went to check her text. It was from Sherlock, and read: _Come to the kitchen. Now. Alone._

 

***

 

Sherlock was standing by the table, hands folded behind his back. He was glaring at a woman Joan did not know.

 

The interloper was small, and wore a pantsuit. Her features had the sort of high-cheekboned, elegantly weathering beauty that Joan associated with her own mother; a vacancy, a disquieting void of expression, that Joan did not. Such calm under the patent Holmesian scrutiny was not common. Joan slowly deposited her handbag on the floor. The atmosphere in the room right now counselled against sudden movement. 

 

“This is my colleague, Joan Watson,” said Sherlock. “Watson, this is… I’m afraid that I didn’t catch your name.”

 

“I didn’t pitch it.”

 

“Our guest has expressed an interest in speaking to my lodger.” Sherlock’s eyes had not shifted from the woman in the pantsuit. “She is, I think, unacquainted with my wonted reaction to nameless lackeys taking liberties.”

 

“You appreciate honesty, Mr. Holmes.”

 

“It is a virtue as salutary as it is rare.”

 

“Sherlock Holmes. Expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. Joan Watson. Also a singlestick player and boxer. Your guard leaves your head a little too exposed, but your power punching is solid for a woman of your size. I know that you are both formidable individuals, Mr. Holmes. And if I were here to take anything, I know that the two of you together couldn’t stop me.”

 

Joan heard neither boast nor threat in the flat voice. Somehow, that was a lot more disconcerting than the theatrics that usually attended upon unexpected arrivals at the brownstone (one of Sherlock's pokers still had a kink in it). _The world is what the world is._ The woman in the pantsuit continued:

 

“But I’m not here to take anything. If your lodger is willing, I should very much like to speak with her.”

 

“You’re confident in your abilities.” Sherlock scratched the back of his head. “There, are, by my reckoning, about twelve individuals in your line of work who could make good on the claim that you just made. And I’m given to understand that the Black Widow is a redhead.”

 

“She’s not Natasha Romanoff, Sherlock. But she could do exactly what she says. And she is a widow, because of me.” Mary moved past Joan into the room. “Hello, May.”

 

“Dai…”

 

“Mary, here. How did you find me?”

 

“The tremor, the day before yesterday.”

 

“There are tremors, every day, across this continent. They prick behind my eyelids when I sleep. Most of them have nothing to do with me. How did you find me?”

 

“By the things that you can’t live without. Wi-fi; coffee; people to help. I know you, and how to map that on to the tremors. I’d like to talk.”

 

Mary bit her lip. “I can’t do this.” She turned, and left the room. They heard the front door slam behind her. Joan cleared her throat. 

 

“Go after her, Sherlock. She needs a friend. I’ll keep our guest company until you get back.”

 

Sherlock nodded curtly at the woman Mary had called “May”, and withdrew. Silence lengthened in the kitchen. 

 

“How did you know the way I box?” Joan asked, eventually.

 

“There’s footage of you in the ring with a detective on YouTube. It was a good KO.” 

 

Joan scowled. “Damn smartphones.” She sat back in her chair. “You didn’t run after her.”

 

“Mary makes her own decisions.”

 

“She said that you were a widow, because of her. Is that true?”

 

“A little. Not very. She blames herself for much that’s not her fault.”

 

A ghost of animation in that voice. “You care for her.”

 

“That would be a weakness.” 

 

“A weakness worth having.”

 

May’s lips twitched. “Perhaps.”

 

“Can I ask why Mary blames herself?”

 

“Her will was taken from her. That’s the kind of world we live in, now. Mary did things while she wasn’t herself that she can’t forgive.”

 

Joan shuddered. “No wonder she got so worked up about the…” Her words trailed off. May stared at her.

 

“What is it?”

 

 _Aristaeus didn’t know what he had done._ “Nothing. Sorry. I just had a thought about a case I’m working. Do you mind if I…?”

 

“Go ahead.”

 

Joan settled at the table, and booted up her laptop. She scrolled through the archives of some local news-sites. Finally, she fished out her smartphone. 

 

“Virginia? It’s Joan Watson. Listen: this is an odd question, but could you tell me _where_ you were jogging at the time of Andrew’s car-crash? Was it down by the docks? Excellent. I’m sending you a link to a picture. I think that I may know why your husband died.”

 

***

 

Mary returned with Sherlock about a quarter of an hour later. “OK,” she said, sliding into a chair beside May. “You’re right. I’m tired, and I’ve been running for far too long. It’s time we talked.”

 

“I’m glad.” May looked away. “It means a lot to me that we can do this.”

 

“Confessing to an emotion around culinary implements.” The careful pleasure behind Mary’s tone reminded Joan of a gymnast, stretching muscles into a move that she thought she had forgotten, and finding it wasn’t that hard for the long abeyance, after all. “Throw in some golf clubs, and this would be your idea of Hell.” 

 

May snorted. “I’m getting better at golf.” Her eyes flickered to Joan and Sherlock and she nodded. “Thank you.”

 

“Our pleasure,” said Joan. “We’ll give you two the kitchen.”

 

***

 

“Do you think that they’ll sort things out?” Joan asked, when she and Sherlock had settled in the living-room.

 

“I don’t know,” said Sherlock. “But I hope that it may be so. While I yield to everyone - perhaps even to Everyone - in my admiration for the general level of competence displayed by the laughably misnamed ‘intelligence’ agencies, I think that what Mary has been doing with her life of late has been, for her, at best, a breathing-space. It should not be suffered to distend into anything more. And I think that the inarticulate Agent May is, after her own fashion, an honourable woman.”

 

“Admit it - you like her just a bit.”

 

“Perhaps a little.”

 

“Thought so. Women who could kill you without breaking a sweat always push your buttons.” Joan fell silent for a few moments before continuing: “I cracked the Helm case.”

 

“I’m intrigued. How did you account for the brainstorm of your errant motorist?”

 

“Virginia Helm was jogging down by the docks in New York when Andrew crashed. She received news of the accident about an hour later, went straight to Albany, and stayed there for the whole of the spring and summer. She only came back to this city last month, and didn’t hear any New York local news in the interim, so she never made the crucial connection. But I got thinking, today, about unintended consequences, and people who aren’t themselves, and the nature of the world we live in, now. That was when I realized that I’d got the case all wrong. It wasn’t what was happening on the Interstate that was important. It was what was happening around Virginia in New York.”

 

Joan brought up a image on her laptop. “While Virginia was out on her run, she saw this man,” Joan tapped the screen, “charging out of a building as though there were a devil at his back. They almost collided, and she remembers that he looked daggers at her, but that kind of thing happens when you’re running, so she mouthed an apology and ran on. Sorry it’s fuzzy; this guy was shy of cameras.”

 

Sherlock scrutinized the screen. It was filled with a blurry still of a stubbly, brown-haired, forty-something man. “Ah - the darkness lifts,” he said. “I remember the coverage. Mr. … Kilgrave, wasn’t it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“A very silly name.”

 

“Yes, _Sherlock_.”

 

“Touché, I suppose.” Sherlock contemplated the image. “He was like Mary, wasn’t he? But his gift was…”

 

“... compulsion. If you heard him give an order, you followed it. No ifs; no buts. From the press reports, you originally had to be in his physical presence for his power to work, but in the final days of his life - he died, unmourned, _very_ shortly after he ran into Virginia - it got stronger. It could work over a PA system…"

 

“... or a ’phone line.”

 

“Exactly. Andrew’s call had just connected in Virginia’s pocket. There’s some doubt in the reports about what Kilgrave was trying to do, but he was definitely in a hurry, and needed bodies. So he emerged on to the docks, nearly collided with Virginia, saw a lot of people around him, and shouted…”

 

“‘Stop.’” 

 

“Yes. Virginia was wearing headphones, and couldn’t hear him. She ran on, and didn’t see what happened next. Her husband, on the other end of the ’phone, wasn’t so lucky; that make is really bad for picking up background noise. And that’s how Andrew Helm was killed, accidentally, by an ass-hole who never knew that he existed.”

 

“Indeed. Good work, Watson.”

 

“Was it?” Joan’s expression clouded. “We do what we do to make sense of things. Put the pieces together; solve the puzzle. But then you find out that a good man died just because a button was jostled in a pocket next to the only person on Earth who could weaponize a ’phone-call. It makes you wonder whether there’s any sense at all.”

 

“Leave grand designs, or their absence, to the philosophers, Watson. Virginia Helm knows why her husband died, thanks to you. Dwight Jenkins knows that there’s nothing he could have done. For us, the sublunary ones, that it is enough.”

 

“I guess.” Joan looked towards the kitchen. “Not all unintended consequences are bad.”

 

“ _sic vos non vobis mellificatis, apes._ ”

 

“Don’t make me ask.”

 

“ _So you, the bees, make honey, not for yourselves_. Not quite accurate in point of natural history.” Sherlock nestled in his chair. “But evocative, all the same.”

 

Joan smiled, as the room darkened with the dusk around them. The golden glow from the kitchen, and the murmur of quiet voices from within it, persisted long into the marches of the night.

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> May echoes a short passage from ACD’s _A Study in Scarlet_. Mary quotes Vergil, _Georgics_ 4.212 at one point, and Sherlock quotes a line attributed to Vergil of somewhat doubtful provenance; both translations are mine.


End file.
